Come on, if he really had nothing to hide he wouldn’t need some wipe-trigger passcode trick. That’s not normal behavior, that’s someone trying to keep cops from seeing something. People keep pretending activists are automatically saints.

Both of you are missing the bigger issue: since when does being near a protest mean the government gets a free pass to rummage through your whole digital life? Even at the border there are limits, and if agents can just say “fishing expedition” and force access, that’s a pretty scary power grab.

Yeah, wiping the phone definitely makes it look bad on his end. If you’re innocent, why use a passcode that nukes everything? That said, border agents demanding access to your device is creepy too, so this smells like both sides being messy.

Honestly, this sounds like a bad precedent either way. If the government can demand your phone and then charge you for protecting it, that’s a scary amount of power. Border search laws are already way too broad.

Maybe, but that’s exactly why border searches make people nervous. If they already had a specific reason to suspect him, fine—but dragging in a phone wipe and calling it evidence sounds like they wanted to go fishing and got burned.